Famed Star Trek ship finds a new home in Houston

A piece of Star Trek history is coming to Space Center Houston, courtesy of some Trek fans that picked up quite the sci-fi prop at an auction last year.

Trek fans may remember the 1967 episode "The Galileo Seven", where the science officers aboard the Enterprise use a shuttlecraft called the Galileo to explore a star system. That prop was bought at an auction last year by collector Adam Schneider for $61,000. The prop's condition was less than stellar, and the trailer-sized vehicle was coated in rust. A Trek fan had bought in the '80s for just around $2,000.

Schneider is a part of a group of Trekkers that wanted to buy the Galileo for an extensive, fan-funded restoration project. Now that it has been restored to its '60s luster, it has been donated to Space Center Houston, where it will sit in the visitor center next to other very real spacecraft from NASA history.

Schneider says it is leaving the warehouse where it is being restored this month and will arrive in Houston in late July.

Space Center Houston spokesman Jack Moore says that the plan is to have Galileo installed at the complex by the end of the year. They are currently ironing out plans for the transportation of Galileo to SCH and its display once it arrives.